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Finishing off the last bits of a sample of a nice Taiwanese old bush ShiCha hongcha in a small pot, after which I'll probably brew something old and relaxing in a bigger pot for the start of a long weekend down here. It's been a while since my last post, mostly due to a combination of re-adjusting m...

Dancong time down here - getting back to trying some samples to learn more about this tea that I've neglected for many years. The first one was a 2023 YouHuaXiang from DaAn - nicely bright and refreshing character, with a cool aftertaste. The second was a 2016 HuangZhiXiang - this one was quite inte...

I've been finishing a few yancha samples, getting towards the end of a packet of some very nice ShuiXian from what I understand to be a higher part of HuiYuanKeng - FengShuKe (枫树窠) , and enjoying some heavily-roasted 2002 TieGuanYin from LiShan. I've also been finishing some of Ethan's teas when the...

There is another factor to count in: The vendor needs to have the palate and understanding of tea to match the quality. Some simply lack the ability to know good from bad tea. This seems like a chicken-and-egg situation: if you don't have much good tea, it's unlikely you'll develop the palate for i...

"Since 2023, the agency has required all domestically produced tea to be labeled with a place of origin, record of production and sale, or an organic label." I don't know how burdensome that kind of requirement might be (nor do I know anything about Taiwanese tea regulations)... Do you know if that ...

I think this topic comes up every now and then, with no consensus on what 'minerality' should mean, or where it comes from (except that it probably has nothing to do with minerals in the soil): https://www.teaforum.org/viewtopic.php?p=35040#p35040 https://www.teaforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2195&s...

And now, finishing that same sample of the 2012 HuiYuanKeng ZhuangYuanHong, and finishing a sample of a 2018 HongJiGuan from GuiYan, which I believe is outside the core area. I found it interesting how the older tea had both aged notes (similar to, say, the plummy notes you get from a 90s puer that ...

Interesting experience indeed; thank you for sharing it. I had thought that yancha was a bit like Burgundy: - the cheap ones aren't very good or interesting, don't come from the classic locations in the region, and don't reflect what the region is capable of producing; - the nice ones are nice, but ...

Playing again with a small sample of a less-typical yancha cultivar - a 2012 ZhuangYuanHong (having finished a pack of a 2023 version of the same cultivar, but different tea, a few days ago). There's not much that I can say usefully in terms of comparing the same cultivar across a decade of ageing, ...

Yea I was actually looking at their Qihong, followed by ZSXZ. But since their wuyi hongcha is sold out, I guess there's no point in simply ordering one or two teas.Was the purple wild varietal weird? I don't think those are in my radar because of bad experience with yesheng types. Then again, their...

Cool, wet, windy day (well, 'cool' relative to usual Summer temperatures around here), so it's a good time to get some hongcha out. Finally getting around to trying a sample of DXJD's LinCang DanZhu DianHong (this one is from 2020 - yes, it's taken a while...). Their website says that it is from a s...

Some old Liu Bao today, apparently from the 1960s, and some other old Liu Bao earlier in the week which I'm still brewing. I feel that holiday periods can be a good time to enjoy some powerful teas, mostly because there are fewer deadlines and fewer other obligations to get in the way, and, hopefull...

Dear Friends: I won't be selling tea anymore. I cannot rely on my palate & don't want to be misleading people who purchase from me because I have been misled by my own deficiencies. (Holy hell, I spelled that word correctly w/o spellcheck.) Dear Ethan, Thank you for the opportunity to try your teas...

Some young bush rougui yancha to start today, now followed by a very nice, elegant GuanYinZhang yancha from old bushes.

A nice return to more 'normal' tea drinking for me, after a while of big pots and lazy / inattentive brewing.

Andrew

I definitely prefer these teas with a very low leaf to water ratio to bring out the floral character and minimize the bitterness. Is that what you mean by "gentle" brewing? Yes - I'm using only 4g per 120mL (whereas my yancha ratio is at least 1g per 10mL, and even my 'normal tea' ratio is 10g per ...